Day 52 Newman WA
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 at 05:00AM Good evening, last night we stayed in Meekatharra, now this is a nice little town. Tidy with a little shopping area, the obligatory pub. The caravan park is also out the back of the service station, a small caravan park with only about 20 sites, but it had power & water.... Perfect. The reason I tell you about this is that it is such a contrast to Wiluna, it is scary! Funny how two towns only separated by 178km can be so different?
We left Meekatharra and headed north, watching the outside temperature gauge climb slowly upwards. It hit 40 by the time we reached Newman. I just went shopping at the local Woolworths in Newman...I now treat grocery shopping like clothes shopping. The grocery stores in the mining towns are often huge and have everything you could imagine...so I wander up and down the aisles browsing the products, reading the labels and make a real outing of it!! It’s ok...we are going to Perth for work in a few weeks so I will get a city fix soon!!
The trucks up here are huge, 3 and 4 trailer road trains! Lucky Dolly has heaps of power as these things are over 50 meters long! But the truckies are great and let you know via the CB if it is clear to pass.
Rob, thank you for looking forward to the blog each night, but do I read into it that you have not much else to do over there? Keep the comments coming it is great to hear from you.
Sandy & David are back in Melbourne, the old discovery did not break down on the way home, so if any of you know anyone looking for a practically rebuilt Landrover 4WD give them our number! Apparently they had a great time in the Flinders Ranges and a well deserved break.
Hey Mel, nice to see you join the bloggies and glad that tom is going well. 2000km HA! We had that done in the first week! By the time we get back we will need to trade it for a new one!
Mary & Pete asked how many kilometres we have done so far, well in the old SHEDisco we had done 8965 km & this one has 5500km on it, so 14465km so far (Far out...that really puts it in to perspective, no wonder my butt feels a little sore every now and then.)
Getting back to Meekatharra we met a couple that were stuck there due to car troubles, Trevor & Mary were driving a Pajero and the gearbox died! The only place in town that could fix it sent down to Perth for a new one $4200! Plus fitting and towing, they will be looking at $6000 plus for repairs! And on top of that they have been stuck in Meekatharra for 5 days!
Nikki not only do you support the dragons, but you call me granddad!
Hey my son Dan goes up to his aunties in Qld today, I rang him while he was at the airport. It will be a great adventure for him, do you remember the things you did when you were young? Some of these things stay with us for the rest of our lives, and if I know my sister & her husband they will make it a trip to remember!
To my cousin Marc, we are out of farming country and in to mining territory, I will try and get some pictures of big trucks, dozers and diggers. Awesome machinery.
Not much else to report, there were lots of cows on the road today, alive and dead! Can you imagine what it would be like to hit a cow at 100km/h? Not fun hey! I am not convinced that all the cows that are no longer alive on the side of the road have been hit by trucks, ,many of them up here are strays(we think) and they are skin and bones, so I think some of them die of heat and lack of food.
Oh just another thing, Vanessa is covered in mozzie bites, last night there were heaps of mozzies in Meekatharra, I layered on the aeroguard and they left me alone and went for her. So I am not allowed to take pictures of her until the spots go away.
And to my sister Shona & little Sam, have fun with Granny when she comes home, I bet you have missed her Sam, give her a big kiss and lots of cuddles and make sure you give Bert one too.
Nighty Night..... Dont let the mozzies bite (Too late for Ness)
James
Reader Comments (4)
nice and early today...must have had a short day of driving..
now I guess you could say I have little to occupy my free time other than your blog and skype chats with my Poozle, thank god the job is keeping me so busy that I have little free time!
Xin Cha'o..that's mostlyhello but sometimes good bye in vietnamese! :)
Hey. I don't know if you're being nice or trying to get me as far away as possible by suggesting a move to WA! I'm as far west as I want to be right now. I was a bit disappointed by the pics of the Kambalda house. The back yard looks like another house has been built on it. Is there a big crime problem - hence the high fences? At least you got a photo of the wall where you tried to get a spider with a broom and sent all your siblings off screaming hysterically when it ran down the handle towards your arm!
I also wouldn't be a truckie over there - long, hard hours, deadlines, being a long way from home. How do they know that a tyre's blown out on the third trailer???
James and Vanessa
I was so excited last night waiting for Daniel - I stayed at home so I could turn on the waterfalls , mop the floors and make some cookies for his arrival.
I have told him that since this is his first visit by himself he gets to pick what he wants to do and where he wants to go but that all went out the window this morning when uncle Brad got him out of bed to go to maccas for breaky and then a drive so he can have a look at morton bay,pick up a trailer we bought off ebay, followed by lunch wherever he wants, I on the other hand have to wait at home for a bloody plumber who is comming between the hours of 10am and 1pm - what is it with these tradies that they can't give a more definate time? lack of time management skills I reckon. it irritates the hell out of me, when I used to organise the painters to go out on site I would tell the client exactly what time they were arriving and if they were even 10 minutes late due to traffic I used to ring them and let them know
I wish it was Heatherworld, things would be so much more organised! - I could actually live in Vanessaworld as well - but if it was Jamesworld or Bradworld - We would all end up ripping our hair out waiting and waiting and waiting
I just got a message from Aunty meggie - the snow cleared on the roads and SHE"S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!